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Luxe Redux

When Ellen Adelman, director of sales for
Shutters on the Beach and Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica, Calif.,
speaks of January 2005, there’s a hint of wonder in her voice, as
if she’s recalling the landing of a strange and beautiful UFO. “It
was a January, which is always so slow,” she notes. “But this
January was the strongest month we have ever had. Something has to
be going on here.”
The “something” Adelman alludes to is the much-touted rebound
of the luxury travel market, perhaps one of the strongest, most
verifiable though, some might add, most inflated claims in the
industry this year. To paraphrase a slew of recent reports, the
luxury market, after years of being trampled on by economic
hardship and the new asceticism, has risen again. As of 12 months
ago, high-end hotels are booking more business, and at higher
rates, than they have since all of this century’s early
devastations slammed the travel market.
Meetings have ramped up as well. After a series of demoralizing
plunges in high-end group business, 2004 marked a significant
increase in RevPAR (revenue per available room) as well as
occupancy for the sector, according to a report from the New York
City-based Hospitality & Leisure Practice of consulting magnate
PricewaterhouseCoopers. Last year, the luxury market saw a 7.3
percent increase in RevPAR and a 7.2 percent jump in sold rooms,
with still more increases expected for this year and beyond.
While hoteliers are cheering this welcome news, rising demand
brings with it some obvious challenges for planners, particularly
in the form of higher room rates, as well as lower
availability.

“Short-term availability
definitely is shrinking.
Even six to nine months
out would be tough.”
Mary Jo Blythe, MasterPlan

The rebound bandwagon
Business is “absolutely” back, proclaims Dieter Huckestein, former
executive vice president of Hilton Hotels Corp. and the newly
minted chairman and CEO of Hilton’s rapidly proliferating luxury
brand, Conrad Hotels, based in Brussels, Belgium. Announcements of
Hilton’s fresh focus on Conrad began early this year, presumably in
response to the shifting power of luxury.
“There’s such a strong, pent-up demand right now. For years,
the meetings industry has been reining itself in,” says Huckestein,
who points to group business as the brand’s most badly bruised
sector in the aftermath of 9/11, compared with the leisure and
corporate travel markets, which recovered much faster. “The last 10
months, though, have shown us one thing: You can only lock these
people up for so long.”
Not everyone, like Huckestein, depicts the 21st-century meeting
attendee as a caged, luxury-starved beast, but the image looms
large over most discussions of current budget ceilings.
“After 9/11,” recalls Mary Jo Blythe, president of Clarendon
Hills, Ill.-based MasterPlan and a third-party planner specializing
in high-end meetings, “clients who previously had only considered
five-star properties started saying, ‘How about a Westin? A Loews?’
Things got extremely conservative.” Over the past eight months,
however, Blythe has seen the stigma of a five-star meeting wearing
away. “There’s a sense again of, ‘We’re working hard and we’re
doing well, and we want our people to feel good about this
company.’”
According to Chevy Chase, Md.-based Ritz-Carlton Hotels, recent
business lends compelling testimony. “This last quarter was the
best one we’ve had since 9/11,” says one representative, “and I
don’t think our competitors are any different. I think it’s safe to
say again that luxury is not a four-letter word.”

This is sponsored content, either sponsor
supplied or produced by Northstar Meetings Group custom content team, on topics
of interest to the meeting planner community. To learn more about custom
content solutions, click here.

This is sponsored content, either sponsor
supplied or produced by Northstar Meetings Group custom content team, on topics
of interest to the meeting planner community. To learn more about custom
content solutions, click here.